Friday, April 27, 2012

Earlier this month we posted about the ups and downs of using Google Scholar (among other Google search tools) for academic research. Today, the Google Scholar interface is up and running, making searching this way far more expedient than it used to be. Clicking the "full text" link to the right of a search result will open the article in EBSCOhost.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Big news on the drive to work today! The New York City Department of Records has released a gallery of over 800,000 images and audio from the Municipal Archives, including glass-plate crime-scene photos from the NYC Police Department. Free and open access makes this historic resource a great tool for researchers in many subject areas ... history, political science, art, criminal justice, sociology, and others.

In Oct. 7, 1914, painters are suspended from wires on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. Photo provided by the New York City Municipal Archives

The link the the Gallery went live today after being up quietly for two weeks. It contains digital artifacts from as far back as the mid-1800s. Links to the gallery can be found on the Web Resources pages of the Library's website. Let us know what you think!

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

It wasn't all that long ago that librarians and educators at the college level admonished students to give up the googling habit they acquired in their primary and secondary schools. So why are so many of us changing our tune now, in a time when there is more information on line than ever, from more sources than ever, creating an even greater need than ever to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff?

Well, because that is exactly what some of Google's tools have been working at, and in the process there has been a collaboration with library systems that makes searching more interactive with the student's library. And that's a good thing because, lets face it, no matter how much we beg students to leave Google for lighter fare, they're never going to do it. The goal, then, is to make using Google work well for academic research.

Until now we at Logue Library have adopted an "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" attitude," teaching the use of Google Scholar with the added step of how to copy information from the article citation, and plug it into our eJournals directory to see if the library subscribes to that particular issue of the journal that contains the desired article. It's clunkier than searching EBSCOhost, PsycNET or another of our subscription databases that already contains the full article content (or links to the full content) without being asked to pay $15-$35+ from the publisher.

This month, Logue Library is working with EBSCOhost to link its electronic subscriptions to Google Scholar search results. When the process is complete, students searching from locations on campus and using their ID from off campus will be a click or two closer to getting access to the content they find through Google Scholar. We will be asking for volunteers to help us test it in the next couple of weeks. If you would like to see a preview of this firsthand, volunteer!

Interaction between the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) - the world's largest public access online library catalog - and Google Books (not to be confused with Google Play Books) has been quietlyavailable since 2008 but is still a little bug-gy on the OCLC end. When searching from a computer or mobile device,* select a book from the Google Books results list and look in the left menu. There will be one or the other of two links for searching a library catalog. If the book is not available as an eBook, the link Find In A Library is visible after a list of purchase locations. If it is an eBook, first click the link Get This Book In Print, and then Find This Book In A Library, which is below a list of places selling the book.

That link will take you to the web version of the OCLC catalog WorldCat. Students logged into a computer on campus or through the proxy server will see a box below the book description stating that they are connected to the Chestnut Hill College network, and providing a link to the library's catalog. A link to OCLC First Search is next to the catalog link, and serves as a back-up if the library's catalog link is not configured properly or the library does not have the book or this particular edition of the book. Clicking the First Search link will also give students the opportunity to request a book through interlibrary loan, rather than make a purchase.

*Note from Diane: When you search Google Play Books, you will not see any links to library holdings. When you are on your iPhone or Android and you type books.google.com into the browser, the page that displays contains a button that says, "Get the Andriod App." That app is the Play Books app. There is no app that I am aware of for books.google.com. Ignore that button and search Google Books on your phone the same way you would on your laptop browser.

Yesterday, Google announced an extensive update to their Art Project, and we have added it as a resource to the Logue Library Arts Web Resources page. As of today it contains some 30,000 works from over 150 galleries worldwide, browsable and searchable by collections, artists and genres. Students and educators can create individual galleries to reference in research and presentations. It is interactive and allows students to not only collaborate with other students and professors, but contact experts directly.